'I really needed this' - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says his victory in front of his home crowd at Silverstone was exactly what he needed in his championship fight with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg.

An error of judgement in qualifying left Hamilton facing an uphill battle but he soon battled from sixth to second, before Nico Rosberg's gearbox failed at mid-distance with Hamilton catching him. The victory and Rosberg's retirement narrows the German's lead to just four points and Hamilton says the win was extra special in front of a home crowd.

"This weekend really just showed that you never give up," Hamilton said." Really, yesterday, it wasn't a case of giving up, I just didn't think I could do the lap [in qualifying] ... At the end of the day I really needed this result so I'm very grateful for it.

"[The emotions] are very mixed at the moment but just to see the support we had here, I could see everyone cheering us on throughout the whole race. We've got the greatest fans here and arriving here today it was you guys who spurred me on so thank you so much."

Hamilton's switch to the hard compound after his first pit stop surprisingly paid dividends, with the Brit lapping a second quicker than Rosberg. Hamilton admits he was not expecting to be so fast on those tyres and also takes no joy from seeing his team-mate retire.

"You never want to see a team-mate fall behind. We wanted to really work on these one-twos. At the beginning he got quite a good gap and just tried to look after the tyres. After that I utilised the tyres and was catching and then we came out on the hard tyre and I was catching him by a second a lap, I couldn't believe I had that kind of pace."